


Ashes on His Tongue

by osprey_archer



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Consent Issues, M/M, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Marcus’s face pinches still further. He is going to say no. Esca feels a flutter of panic. Only he could fail at seducing a Roman. He </i>cannot<i> fail, at this as at everything else. </i></p>
<p>Warning for consent issues, self-loathing, general distressingness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes on His Tongue

Marcus is getting well. He walks, now, across the courtyard, down to the baths, barely leaning on Esca, and without the pained pinch that marked his mouth in their first walks as he recovered. He still grows tired after long walks, still limps at the end, still falls into bed and sleeps like the dead once Esca has helped him out of his tunic. He frowns when he sleeps, two lines between his eyes. 

But Esca sees that soon, even that tiredness will leave Marcus: and Marcus will want him then. He feels Marcus’s eyes on him in the morning, possessive, assessing. He has never caught Marcus looking, but Marcus’s guiltily averted face when Esca looks at him tell the story. 

Why avert his face? Embarrassed by his weakness, perhaps. Waiting till he can master Esca properly before he orders Esca to his bed. 

Esca finds he despises the thought. Such an order will shatter the fragile thing between them: he will have to loathe Marcus. He is not sure that he can. 

Well. If there is nothing else left to defy, Esca can defy fate: he can force the inevitable to happen on his own terms. 

So one evening, when Marcus has had a little more wine than usual – not enough to be drunk, but enough to relax him – after Esca helps him disrobe for the evening, he places a hand on Marcus’s bare broad shoulder. Marcus stills, almost quivering. Esca’s breath catches in his throat, and he has to clear it before he says, “Fuck me.” 

Marcus gapes. “What? Why?”

Esca is thrown. He had not expected any conversation. “I thought you would want me soon enough,” he blurts. 

Marcus’s mouth pinches shut. “I would never force you,” he says. 

Something in Esca relaxes. Of course there are a thousand ways a master can force without hitting or holding down, but it is something to know that Marcus will do neither of those things. It warms Esca to his task. “I don’t ask to forestall you,” Esca says, though of course that is why he asks. “You are not unattractive, and I – ”

Marcus’s face pinches still further. He is going to say no. Esca feels a flutter of panic. Only he could fail at seducing a Roman. He _cannot_ fail, at this as at everything else. 

“ – and I am lonely,” he hears himself finish, and to his horror he can taste the truth of the words in his mouth. _Lonely_ – all his justifications fall to ashes on his tongue. He sees his thoughts for what they are: veils over his true feelings: ragged coverings for the fact that he wants Marcus.

Wants Marcus. A Roman, his master. Wants Marcus. Because Esca is _lonely_. 

“Oh,” says Marcus, and there is a painful suppressed eagerness in his voice. He shifts on the bed, wincing a little. His leg pains him. “I am tired. I do not think I can…” His voice trails off. He blushes. It is mesmerizing. Esca wishes himself dead. “But we could do something else,” Marcus says. “So. So what should we – what do you want to do?”

Esca stares at him. He had not thought he would need to make any suggestion past _fuck me_. 

“I could...kiss you?” Marcus suggests, tentative, hopeful. 

Romans never want to kiss Esca. No one has kissed him since the Brigantes died. Marcus is biting his lip. “Yes, of course,” Esca says. He sits on the edge of the bed, as tentative as Marcus, his hands pressed to his thighs. Marcus leans in, hands hovering in midair before settling, feather light, on Esca’s shoulders. 

Esca realizes, distantly, that he ought to move his hands. They remain pressed against his thighs. He has forgotten how to have sex with people he likes. Marcus is leaning forward, eyes closed, and Esca is leaning away: he seems to be watching the two of them from the ceiling. Marcus’s hands tighten on his shoulders. They are nowhere near Esca’s throat. Esca cannot breathe. Marcus’s wine-sour breath brushes his lips. 

Esca scrambles away so fast he almost falls off the edge of the bed. “My mouth is unclean,” he blurts. “I should have told you. I am sorry.” 

“Ah,” says Marcus. He casts for the pitcher. “We can – ”

“Not that kind of unclean,” Esca snaps. 

Marcus understands. His eyes go wide. “Oh,” he says, and again, “ _Oh_ ,” and he looks at Esca, a frown between his eyes. “I don’t mind,” he says, half lifting a hand toward Esca. “I still want to…” But then he seems to focus on Esca, standing at the end of the bed, poised as if to run. Marcus drops his hand. “Esca, are you sure you want to – ”

“I offered myself to you! What more do you want?” Esca cries. “Do you need flattery? Should I say you are beautiful, well-made, say you have been _kind_ – tell you that I want you, that I _need_ you – ” Esca gags on the word. True; all true. His face twists with the shame.

But self-loathing is not the thing that Marcus sees in Esca’s rage-twisted face. Marcus’s own face flushes in return, his fists clench, his nostrils flare: there is an anger there, a hopelessness that answers Esca’s own. He casts his blanket over his scarred leg, turning away. “Go away. Don’t sleep at my door tonight.” 

Marcus will probably sell him. Esca grabs his blanket. It is the worst thing that could happen. His heart roars in his ears. He wants to apologize, to make things right between them, as if things have ever been right between them – 

Marcus grabs his wrist. 

Esca’s body seizes. Yes: there is a thing that would be worse than selling. 

But Marcus does not drag Esca to the bed. Instead he snarls, “I will never order you to my bed.” His eyes are slits. “Or ask you. Or want you. Do you understand me?” 

It takes a moment for Esca’s tongue to unfreeze. “Yes, domine,” he murmurs. 

It is a scornful answer. It could not be otherwise: because it is obvious Marcus wanted him. Marcus’s free hand twitches as if he means to strike Esca, but he drives it into the mattress instead. “You didn’t need to lie to me,” Marcus says coldly. “It was enough to say that you were lonely too.”


End file.
